


You changed.

by Alicartin



Category: Dororo (Anime 2019)
Genre: Canon Divergence, set during episode 18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 20:38:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18836350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alicartin/pseuds/Alicartin
Summary: When Tahomaru woke up, he didn’t know where he was. It was dark, and his head hurt. Actually all of his body hurt. He looked around at his environment for a bit. It seemed like he was somewhere underground. Then it hit him, as memories were slowly beginning to return to his head. He was in a battle. A battle against the demon that had been destroying their land, Hyakkimaru, when the ground belief them collapsed.Set during episode 18 after Shiranui blows everything up, only things take a different turn as Tahomaru and Hyakkimaru get stuck underground and have a chance to actually talk to each other.





	You changed.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so. Episode 18 destroyed me, like absolutely annihilated me. Why are these children fighting again? Tahomaru why are you acting like a huge jerk and also a dictator? Are you having your teen angst phase?  
> Anyhow, I was having the big sad, and I needed to make myself feel better I wrote a scenario where these two get to talk things out without fighting. I just want them to be good brothers to each other. ;-;

When Tahomaru woke up, he didn’t know where he was. It was dark, and his head hurt. Actually all of his body hurt. He looked around at his environment for a bit. It seemed like he was somewhere underground. But the place didn’t seem naturally made. The place was small and tight, almost like he had fallen into a big crack in the ground. The walls he was surrounded with were far too high to climb up, as there were no edges he could grab onto. The whole place looked fresh, as if it had just been created. Almost as if, it had formed in an explosion.

Then it hit Tahomaru, as memories were slowly beginning to return to his head.  
He was in a battle. A battle against the demon that had been destroying their land, Hyakkimaru. His own flesh and blood. But just in the midst of the battle the ground beneath them collapsed and they fell into one of the cracks. It was a miracle they even survived, he thought.

Then he realized. Hyakkimaru feel into the same crack too. Tahomaru looked at his surroundings and there he was.

The demon.

The young man quickly saw the opportunity that was in front of him. Slowly stood up and went to grab his sword, only to realize… It wasn’t with him.  
Panicked he looked around the rocky prison he was trapped in, trying to find it, but it was nowhere in sight. It was then that Hyakkimaru awoke. The noise the other boy was making was probably picked up by his still sensitive ears. He stood up in a sitting position, still clearly disoriented. He looked around for a bit, to find the source of the sound that had woken him up. Then he spotted him. The soul that looked very much like his own. He could feel the rage inside him trying to build up.

“Tahomaru” he said. His voice had a threatening tone. The sound of it pierced through Tahomaru’s veins, as he felt fear in his bones.

The younger of the two started to run. He knew it was pointless, he didn’t see any possible exits and the place was far too small for him to hide anywhere, but he just refused. He refused to die like this. To be humiliated like this again. In desperation he started pushing and punching one of the stony walls but it was no use.  
Because he knew. It was over. He was going to die. He was sure of it the second the demon got up and in a matter of seconds he caught up with him.  
Then the monster known as Hyakkimaru pulled out the blade he still had in one of his arms.  
Tahomaru closed his eyes. It took his best efforts not to sound afraid, even though inside he was terrified. Still, if he was going to die, he was going to die like a samurai, not a weeping child crying for forgiveness and mercy.  
He was done being a child, a person driven by their emotions. He refused to be led by them ever again.

And then. Nothing happened. The demon that threatened Tahomaru’s land just stood there with the blade over the younger man’s neck. The young lord realized what was happening and grew enraged.

“What are you playing it?” he angrily demanded.

There was silence again. It was like Hyakkimaru had been trying to put into words everything that was going through his head, but just couldn’t find the right way to.

“Why?” he finally said.

Tahomaru was silent for a second too. Not because he was startled by the question, he wasn’t. It was a simple question with a simple answer. He chuckled to himself. The demon really was an idiot.

“I’m not here to answer your questions!” he spat. “So get on with it already!”

“No”, he simply said. “You… No need to die” he tried forming a sentence, just to make it clear to the other that he wasn’t going to hurt him.

“Why?” the older of the two repeated again.

“Are you also deaf? I said I am not going to answer your questions!” Tahomaru knew that it was probably not the wisest decision to yell at and insult the person holding a blade against his neck, but he was growing far too impatient and angry. He didn’t need his mercy!

“Answer!” it seemed like that not only was the young lord growing impatient, but so was Hyakkimaru. “Why you want to hurt Dororo?”

Dororo? Wasn’t that the kid that always travelled with Hyakkimaru? It was true, he had made it clear that all those who oppose him will die too. Tahomaru had ordered for everyone who sides with Hyakkimaru to be killed. It was a mature decision, he thought. A decision a true leader would make, because leaders were not controlled by their emotions. The enemy was the enemy.

“I said I wasn’t going to answer your questions and that’s final!” he managed to say finally. He was afraid to say it, was obvious, as the younger of the two was trembling in fear. He closed his eyes, expecting the worst to happen, but to his surprise his brother just put away his sword.

“Dororo doesn’t want me to kill people” he simply said and walked away.

Tahomaru then realized the implication of what the demon said. Pure uncontrollable rage filled his body.

“So you were holding back this whole time!” Tahomaru yelled completely losing his temper, as he grabbed the older boy by his clothes and pushed him into one of the walls.

“You were taking pity on me! What? Am I not a worthy enough opponent to you?” he said in animosity. “Well I don’t need your damn pity!” he screamed as he threw a punch in the other’s face with brute force.

Realizing what he had done, he was now sure that he was going to get slashed in half any moment now. What he didn’t expect was for Hyakkimaru to punch him back with the same strength.

“Immature”, Hyakkimaru said.

Immature? Did that demon just call the future heir of Daigo’s land immature? He was nothing like immature! He was! He was… He was humiliated! It was an appropriate reaction to have to someone insulting his honor!

The younger stomped didn’t have time to deal with this. So he stomped away and was now looking for an exit. He was not going to spend the remaining time of his life with someone this insulting. But as he searched and searched for any possible stone or edge he could climb onto to reach the small hole at the mare top of the underground prison, he realized the truth.

“We are going to die here”, the younger of the two said in a defeated fearful tone. “We’re surrounded by all sides. This place has us locked”.

“We can only hope that someone will find us”, he told the other.

He went to one of the rocks on the floor and just sat on it. Hyakkimaru joined him.

And so they sat like that. In complete silence for what felt like hours. Perhaps, it really was hours. Their only exit and source of light was a small hole, so small that only a child could crawl through it, and not only that but the whole stayed at absolute highest part of the cave that were far too out of reach. Tahomaru felt defeated.  
Never had he expected he would die like this. Alone with a monster that he has vowed to kill.

The dead silence continued for a little while.

“Why?” Hyakkimaru repeated the third time. It almost seemed like the question was asked solely to stop the silence. Well one would think that, but it was obvious that the question was on Hyakkimaru’s mind this whole time.

“Why?” Tahomaru started in an annoyed tone. What was the use in keeping quiet, they are going to die anyway, might as well make this idiot realize. “You know why!” he yelled. “You are the sole reason this land is dying! You are a demon that is threatening the safety of our people! Don’t you understand this? You have to die!” Tahomaru finally answered in an enraged tone.

“A demon”, the older boy repeated in a mumble. Hyakkimaru often mumbled his words, Tahomaru noticed only from a few conversations he’s had with him. But this time it sounded different. Almost as if the other man was considering what he said.

“I’m not”, he then said.

Tahomaru was growing more and more annoyed and angry every second. Why was it so hard for Hyakkimaru to see the reality of the situation?

“Don’t you understand? If you continue to live the land will die!” he tried to reason.

“My body” Hyakkimaru said slowly, holding his hand up in a moving it around his chest, clearly as a gesture of visual language since the young man was still having a hard time expressing himself with words, “is mine”, he told the young lord.

He did have a point. It was his body that was wrongfully taken away from him.

“But people will suffer!” Tahomaru tried again. He took a deep breath. He was really trying to make him understand but he knew it was pointless to argue with someone like Hyakkimaru. “People will starve, children, women. Their fathers and husbands will die in wars. Famine and hunger will consume all the land. For what? For a single person to live. How selfish”, he said in a tone full of resentment.

“People are suffering”, Hyakkimaru said as he got up and walked a few feet away.

 “Where? The land was prosperous before you got started slaying demons!” Tahomaru yelled at the other.

“Mio suffered. Dororo suffered. Other people too”, he said in a somber tone in his voice. “I suffered”, he tried to make the other understand. “Still suffering”.

“The demons are eating. Still eating. Family wants me dead. Father, mother, brother”, Tahomaru could hear the anguish in his voice. No matter how much he despised Hyakkimaru at the moment for humiliating him, he felt… sad for him. No! He quickly banished the thought from his head. He was not going to let his emotions take the better of him again!

 “Why can’t you understand? I’m not trying to…! I don’t want you to...! It’s not like I’m trying to kill you because I want to!”

“Liar”, Hyakkimaru said.

“What did you say?” Tahomaru said in an offended tone.

“You are lying” he responded. “You are different then before. You changed”, Hyakkimaru observed.

“Yeah. I guess I am”, Tahomaru said with a distant look. “I realized that emotions have no play on the battlefield. I’m going to make decisions that are worthy of a future heir, not one of a small child”.

“You” Hyakkimaru pointed at him, much to Tahomaru’s confusion. “Still emotional”.

“How so?” Tahomaru asked clearly bothered.

“Anger. Resentment. Hatred.” He listed. “You feel those for me. Still emotional. Still a child”, he repeated.

Silence filled the cave again. The two young men were once again staring at each other, thoughts buzzing through their heads.

“So what”, Tahomaru spat. “It doesn’t matter, what matters is that I looked at and accepted the objective truth. You need to be killed for our land. That’s the situation”.

“I didn’t ask”, Hyakkimaru said. “I didn’t ask for my body to be sold!” His voice clearly angered like he had been wanting to say this for a long time. And perhaps he did.

Tahomaru was silenced for a while. Now the two were getting into the ethics and morality of the deal their father made. And it was perhaps the only thing he knew they both actually agreed on.

“I disagree with what father did”, Tahomaru finally said, his head lowered, like he was trying to hide his expression, “but he did it for the domain! Like I said, people were suffering!”

“You” Hyakkimaru responded. He sounded different than before. Like all the suffering he had to go through all these years have finally broken him down, till the only thing that was left was pure uncontrollable resentment, “feed you to the demons”.

Tahomaru’s eyes winded.

Yes, he thought about that solution, but he always dismissed those thoughts, because nobody dared to suggest such a thing, but now someone was confronting him about the thing he didn’t want to think about.

“Why not you?” Hyakkimaru said taking a step towards Tahomaru.

“Why me?” he asked coming closer.

Tahomaru tensed.

“Because…” he tried to find an explanation, he really did, but nothing he could say could possibly justify himself.

 “Daigo. Feed Daigo to the demons” Hyakkimaru told him. He took another step.

“Why me?” he repeated, this time with what seemed like a glimmer of sorrow in his voice. He was now only a few inches away from Tahomaru.

“Feed someone else! Someone who wants to!” he yelled. Then the older boy grabbed him and bringing their faces closer to each other. At this point Tahomaru was visibly shaking. Maybe it was because of the fear of Hyakkimaru finally snapping and killing him, or maybe… it was the fact that he was finally confronting the question that had been eating him up from the inside this entire time.

“Why me?” Hyakkimaru’s voiced cracked. Was it because of anger of sorrow? One could only ask as tears were starting to form in the young man’s eyes.

“I want to live”, he said letting Tahomaru out of his grasp. “I want to live like everyone else”.

Seeing the boy finally break down like this, was too much for Tahomaru. Guilt was eating him up alive. Emotions were such a petty thing weren’t they? No matter how much he tried to conceal them, how much he tried to ignore them, to replace them with other things, they were there. And his emotions were telling him what he was doing wasn’t right. They were telling him that he was the bad guy here. And he didn’t like it.

It was different when he himself thought about these things, Hyakkimaru’s pain and the unfairness of the situation in the privacy of his mind. He could ignore those feelings and thoughts, but when now that someone other than his own conscience was confronting him about it, he couldn’t sweep these things under the rug anymore. The sense of guilt was dripping from every fiber of his being.

He didn’t know how to respond. What could he possibly say that could justify himself? There was no such thing.

“You are right”, he slowly said raising his head from the ground. “You… you do deserve to live like everyone else”, it pained him to say it but it was the truth.

“I’m a coward, that’s what’s happening here”, he admitted. The sentence came out of his mouth like there were needles piercing his tongue with each new word he spoke. As if it physically pained him to talk. His pride was hurt, he felt humiliated again. Opening up like this, and to Hyakkimaru, his enemy for that matter. “I’m a coward, our father is a coward, and our people are cowards”, he started to chuckle.

“No one I knew even suggested this possibility, even though we were all thinking it, nobody was brave enough to say it”.

Hyakkimaru looked at him, noticing that something changed in the younger man’s soul.

“It’s funny”, he continued. “I told myself I wouldn’t listen to my emotions and yet I’m absolutely consumed by fear” he confessed.

“I’ve been deluding myself. Thinking of myself as the honorable righteous one. But really what kind of a leader puts his own fears and needs before his people’s? What kind of a leader sacrifices someone else’s innocent life instead of his own” he said, his voice cracking slightly.

He smiled at Hyakkimaru, the demon, the monster… his brother.

“I am sorry Hyakkimaru, brother. I wish you didn’t live a life of suffering, I wish we could have known each other under different circumstances. But… I can’t save you”, he said tears starting to form on his face.

“I didn’t ask to be put in this situation”, he cried. “I… don’t know what to do brother. It’s unfair. I’ve lived a prosperous life while you had been suffering for so long. And now that you finally have a chance at living like everybody else, we are trying to take that away from you. It’s unfair”, he said choking on the sobs.

Was he really doing this? He was crying. He couldn’t remember the last time he cried, and yet he was crying. Confronting the true morality of the situation was harder than he ever thought it would be. It made him soft, thinking about the life Hyakkimaru had to live, how everything was taken away from him. Thinking about the innocent baby that was fed to the demons, how they are still eating that child to this day. Devouring it, feasting upon it. That baby could have been him.

He couldn’t believe he was being this vulnerable, emotional and open with the enemy and actually siding with him. But the truth was, Hyakkimaru might have been his enemy. But he was also his brother.

“You are right. I should sacrifice myself to the demons”, he said in defeat.

He closed his eyes that were filled with tears at this point, only to open them a few short seconds later as he felt two hands on his wet cheeks.

“Hey… what are you doing?” Tahomaru asked confused.

Then their foreheads collided as the older boy started rubbing his head against his brother’s. Tahomaru didn’t know what it meant, but deep down he felt like this was his brother’s way of saying that it was ok. That, after everything Tahomaru has done, he forgave him.

He felt guilty. He felt guilty that his brother forgave him after everything. How he forgave him despite how only a few hours earlier the younger brother was trying to kill him. Despite how he insulted him, hurt him, tried to use his life for his own needs. It was too much.

“I’m sorry”, he said again. “I’m sorry for everything”, he cried.

Then, despite his thoughts telling him that he shouldn’t have the right to, he slowly raised his shaking hands and embraced his brother in a weak hug. Quickly picking up what was happening Hyakkimaru hugged him back too. And they stayed like that for a while, silence overtaking them again. But this time it was a peaceful silence.

 “Heh, it seems like we’re stuck here for now”, he said once he finally calmed down. “We never really got a chance to talk like brothers. Maybe this is our chance”, he gave a weak smile.

And Hyakkimaru smiled back.

"You changed", he said.

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly I feel better after writing this.  
> I feel like Tahomaru is a deeply emotional person. I think that once he's confronted about the things that he is trying to suppress, the guilt he has would eat him up alive. Even when he is trying his best to hide his emotions, he's still emotional, just look at episode 18. "I'm not letting my emotions control me", yeah keep telling yourself that buddy with all that anger and resentment and humiliation you *feel*. Those totally aren't controlling you, nuh-uh.
> 
> I might continue this for maybe two more chapters (one where they talk like brothers and one where Tahomaru talks to Dororo)? But I'm not sure. So it's staying a oneshot until I decide UwU.


End file.
